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That's not debunking, that's dismissing. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've dismissed plenty of people in my life. I don't have time to argue with and debunk

That's not debunking, that's dismissing. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've dismissed plenty of people in my life. I don't have time to argue with and debunk Holocaust deniers and Neo-Nazis, nor do I think it would be productive, because in my experience almost all such people are way beyond reasoning with. Also, when such people "debate", they're often just trying to spread their propaganda to bystanders, and not engaging in any kind of good-faith argument with you. Finally, I recognize that if these people ever get power they will crush, in a very literal way, using violence, anyone who doesn't agree with them, who is not "pure" enough for them, or who stands in their way.

Applejinx 6y ago
I find that's a vital realization to have. It's also more than a bit sad: anybody from ANY political angle who's desperate enough will sink to this level. That said, there's some political angles that I see a lot of this from. Nazis lie, is the way I frame it to myself. I try to recognize the tells, the techniques that are being used, the pivoting and debating attitude, the historical precedents, if possible the escalation as masks are dropped and the ideological payload is hinted at or delivered. There's always a payload. Everything else is the game. Nazis lie. I'm interested in identifying them, not debating them. If I can identify them, I can identify their payload and odds are it's something I'm going to want to walk away from, and I'll do just that.
- galaxyLogic 6y ago
  > Nazis lie. True. Nazis are ready to use violence to gain dominion over others. Lying is a form of violence, so it just makes sense for them to use it. It is easier for them to lie than use physical violence and preferably they don't get caught. Just use their power to influence. But I wonder if the paper perhaps did not consider this:: Even though correcting someone can make them defensive, the correction might be very helpful to all the other readers of the same discussion, so they don't get mislead.
  - swader999 6y ago
    Have you ever met a Nazi, a flat earther or a white supremacist? I never have, not online either. People throw these terms around like they are on every corner.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      > Have you ever met a Nazi, a flat earther or a white supremacist? Sadly yes to 1 and 3. Live in person. Online? Tons.
    - galaxyLogic 6y ago
      Maybe a "nazi sympathizer" would be a better term. It is interesting you bring in Flat Earthers. What do they have in common with Nazis? Anything? I think there is something. It is the message "Don't use your brain to come up with answers just adopt our doctrine as faith".
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > Nazis lie, is the way I frame it to myself. I try to recognize the tells, the techniques that are being used, the pivoting and debating attitude, the historical precedents, if possible the escalation as masks are dropped and the ideological payload is hinted at or delivered. There's always a payload. Everything else is the game. I've actually experienced something like that. I once found myself peripheral to some internet controversy where there was this guy who seemed like he was on "my side" but prolifically posting in a really counterproductive way. In good faith, I spend a lot of time trying to get him to realize that, only for him to eventually to throw random slurs at me. I'm pretty sure he was just an alt-right type who didn't actually care much about the specific controversy, but was just trying to exploit the drama.
kurthr 6y ago
Yeah, at this point I can't tell trolls from idiots. Like it's a lifestyle. You're at a restaurant on the ocean and some fairly educated dude wants to go all flat earth. I'm like, "let me go get some binoculars and you can tell me why the bottom of the container ship falls below the horizon first. We can even estimate the distance based on size of ship and magnification factor to get a radius for the earth".... "No, it doesn't work that way". Huh? Why are all the other planets round? Why does the earth cast a round shadow on the moon (vice versa for eclipse)? Why can you fly to India in either direction in the same amount of time? It's conspiracy theories all the way down. Stupid, angry, or willfully ignorant, they're painful to talk to.
- galaxyLogic 6y ago
  > Stupid, angry, or willfully ignorant, they're painful to talk to. I think that is the intention behind their social discourse, to be painful. To disagree. To prove that they are superior.
  - javajosh 6y ago
    It is an exercise in power, a pale imitation of O'Brian in 1984: >Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in shapes of your own choosing.
- robotresearcher 6y ago
  > they're painful to talk to. Your discomfort is the point for them. Quickly figuring out that you're in such an interaction and bailing before your day is ruined is the best you can hope for in the short term.
  - guntars 6y ago
    Exactly, tell them to fuck off with a smile.
dukeofdoom 6y ago
Perfect example of one of those guys here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80UeLAbFbWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80UeLAbFbWA
thu2111 6y ago
I think the OP's point is that a lot of people who think they are debunking aren't very good at it, and end up dismissing instead. I realized just how low quality most debunkings are last year when I started wondering what happens if an uncertain person specifically searches for [$idea debunking] on Google. I chose "5G causes Coronavirus" as the idea in question. Sure enough, a whole pile of articles claiming to be debunkings came up in the results. The problems became apparent when reading them. Some of these debunkings were barely more coherent than the idea they were trying to debunk and would be very unconvincing. Almost always these were written by professional journalists. I did eventually find one that actually took the reader seriously and was free of obvious contradictions and errors but it was written by a physicist. Common problems are: - A belief that simply repeating the words of the journalist's chosen academic or corporate spokesperson is the same thing as a debunking. If someone is finding your article in the first place, it means they already have doubt about the establishment's view of something so simply repeating it can't convince them. This tactic is especially useless because basically any idea no matter how crazy it sounds will have academics and credentialed people who openly support it and campaign for it, so it turns into "my experts are more expert than your experts", which is less convincing still. - An extremely off-putting and arrogant tone of the form "I can't believe I have to write about this, but ..." - Articles that contain internal contradictions or are written in a manner implying the debunker doesn't understand the topic themselves. One debunking I read started by asserting that although 5G uses millimeter waves, such waves are completely harmless and only crazy deluded people could possibly think they were dangerous. Half way through the article it started talking about military experiments that beamed mm wave at enemy soldiers to cripple them with pain. No mention of strength or energy consumption was made anywhere, apparently without noticing that "used in weapons" and "harmless" are mutually exclusive without much more detailed information about why some are harmless and others aren't. - Debunkings that aren't actually debunkings but rather, explanations of why $idea is true but good. One example of this is the (no longer available) section of the EU Commission website that claimed to be a database of debunkings of "myths" about the EU in the British press. When I spot checked some one day it turned out a large chunk were like this, maybe the majority, i.e. "Newspaper X reported Y. This is true but is justified by our policy goals". Well, that's a retort in a debate but not a debunking of a myth, and when that happens it makes people lower the perceived weight of the word "debunk". These kinds of problem are so common it left me with a much greater understanding of why even some ideas seem to grow faster and further than you would intuitively expect.

Applejinx 6y ago

I find that's a vital realization to have. It's also more than a bit sad: anybody from ANY political angle who's desperate enough will sink to this level. That said, there's some political angles that I see a lot of this from. Nazis lie, is the way I frame it to myself. I try to recognize the tells, the techniques that are being used, the pivoting and debating attitude, the historical precedents, if possible the escalation as masks are dropped and the ideological payload is hinted at or delivered. There's always a payload. Everything else is the game. Nazis lie. I'm interested in identifying them, not debating them. If I can identify them, I can identify their payload and odds are it's something I'm going to want to walk away from, and I'll do just that.

galaxyLogic 6y ago
> Nazis lie. True. Nazis are ready to use violence to gain dominion over others. Lying is a form of violence, so it just makes sense for them to use it. It is easier for them to lie than use physical violence and preferably they don't get caught. Just use their power to influence. But I wonder if the paper perhaps did not consider this:: Even though correcting someone can make them defensive, the correction might be very helpful to all the other readers of the same discussion, so they don't get mislead.
- swader999 6y ago
  Have you ever met a Nazi, a flat earther or a white supremacist? I never have, not online either. People throw these terms around like they are on every corner.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    > Have you ever met a Nazi, a flat earther or a white supremacist? Sadly yes to 1 and 3. Live in person. Online? Tons.
  - galaxyLogic 6y ago
    Maybe a "nazi sympathizer" would be a better term. It is interesting you bring in Flat Earthers. What do they have in common with Nazis? Anything? I think there is something. It is the message "Don't use your brain to come up with answers just adopt our doctrine as faith".
tablespoon 6y ago
> Nazis lie, is the way I frame it to myself. I try to recognize the tells, the techniques that are being used, the pivoting and debating attitude, the historical precedents, if possible the escalation as masks are dropped and the ideological payload is hinted at or delivered. There's always a payload. Everything else is the game. I've actually experienced something like that. I once found myself peripheral to some internet controversy where there was this guy who seemed like he was on "my side" but prolifically posting in a really counterproductive way. In good faith, I spend a lot of time trying to get him to realize that, only for him to eventually to throw random slurs at me. I'm pretty sure he was just an alt-right type who didn't actually care much about the specific controversy, but was just trying to exploit the drama.

kurthr 6y ago

Yeah, at this point I can't tell trolls from idiots. Like it's a lifestyle. You're at a restaurant on the ocean and some fairly educated dude wants to go all flat earth. I'm like, "let me go get some binoculars and you can tell me why the bottom of the container ship falls below the horizon first. We can even estimate the distance based on size of ship and magnification factor to get a radius for the earth".... "No, it doesn't work that way". Huh? Why are all the other planets round? Why does the earth cast a round shadow on the moon (vice versa for eclipse)? Why can you fly to India in either direction in the same amount of time? It's conspiracy theories all the way down. Stupid, angry, or willfully ignorant, they're painful to talk to.

galaxyLogic 6y ago
> Stupid, angry, or willfully ignorant, they're painful to talk to. I think that is the intention behind their social discourse, to be painful. To disagree. To prove that they are superior.
- javajosh 6y ago
  It is an exercise in power, a pale imitation of O'Brian in 1984: >Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in shapes of your own choosing.
robotresearcher 6y ago
> they're painful to talk to. Your discomfort is the point for them. Quickly figuring out that you're in such an interaction and bailing before your day is ruined is the best you can hope for in the short term.
- guntars 6y ago
  Exactly, tell them to fuck off with a smile.

dukeofdoom 6y ago

Perfect example of one of those guys here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80UeLAbFbWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80UeLAbFbWA

thu2111 6y ago

I think the OP's point is that a lot of people who think they are debunking aren't very good at it, and end up dismissing instead. I realized just how low quality most debunkings are last year when I started wondering what happens if an uncertain person specifically searches for [$idea debunking] on Google. I chose "5G causes Coronavirus" as the idea in question. Sure enough, a whole pile of articles claiming to be debunkings came up in the results. The problems became apparent when reading them. Some of these debunkings were barely more coherent than the idea they were trying to debunk and would be very unconvincing. Almost always these were written by professional journalists. I did eventually find one that actually took the reader seriously and was free of obvious contradictions and errors but it was written by a physicist. Common problems are: - A belief that simply repeating the words of the journalist's chosen academic or corporate spokesperson is the same thing as a debunking. If someone is finding your article in the first place, it means they already have doubt about the establishment's view of something so simply repeating it can't convince them. This tactic is especially useless because basically any idea no matter how crazy it sounds will have academics and credentialed people who openly support it and campaign for it, so it turns into "my experts are more expert than your experts", which is less convincing still. - An extremely off-putting and arrogant tone of the form "I can't believe I have to write about this, but ..." - Articles that contain internal contradictions or are written in a manner implying the debunker doesn't understand the topic themselves. One debunking I read started by asserting that although 5G uses millimeter waves, such waves are completely harmless and only crazy deluded people could possibly think they were dangerous. Half way through the article it started talking about military experiments that beamed mm wave at enemy soldiers to cripple them with pain. No mention of strength or energy consumption was made anywhere, apparently without noticing that "used in weapons" and "harmless" are mutually exclusive without much more detailed information about why some are harmless and others aren't. - Debunkings that aren't actually debunkings but rather, explanations of why $idea is true but good. One example of this is the (no longer available) section of the EU Commission website that claimed to be a database of debunkings of "myths" about the EU in the British press. When I spot checked some one day it turned out a large chunk were like this, maybe the majority, i.e. "Newspaper X reported Y. This is true but is justified by our policy goals". Well, that's a retort in a debate but not a debunking of a myth, and when that happens it makes people lower the perceived weight of the word "debunk". These kinds of problem are so common it left me with a much greater understanding of why even some ideas seem to grow faster and further than you would intuitively expect.